By Meaghan Edelstein, Mashable
As the overarching organization that oversees college athletes and their recruitment, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has its own set of rules that athletes, coaches and boosters must follow when using social media.
The NCAA’s managing director of communications, Ronnie Ramos, sat down with me to discuss the organization’s evolving guidelines for social media — territory the NCAA entered in just the past few years. The NCAA regulates social media particularly to maintain an even playing field when it comes to recruiting student athletes, applying its more traditional recruitment guidelines to the ever-changing social technologies available.
Ramos delves into the NCAA member schools’ reasons for doing this, as well as which types of social media use are permissible, and which are prohibited. He also explains the relationship between the NCAA and its member schools in making and enforcing rules.
Why does the NCAA feel it needs to regulate social media?
While there isn’t a ban on social media, the NCAA, of necessity, must attempt to regulate. Otherwise, we would be unable to maintain a level playing field for recruiting consistent with our existing rules. The prevalent use of social is why we began focusing on this issue. Coaches will go where the student athletes are.
What role does the NCAA play when it comes to creating and enforcing social media rules?
There are over 1,000 schools regulated by the NCAA, and every rule is passed by these schools. The NCAA does not create the rules but instead is the one who is responsible for enforcing them. Because of this, schools have a lot of leeway to do what they want the way they want.
Players are allowed to have Twitter and Facebook accounts. And, unlike the NFL, there is no NCAA rule that says players can’t use Twitter prior to the game, etc… However, individual schools can establish such bans. Duke allows players to use Twitter; they see it as an educational process, while Miami doesn’t allow football players to use Twitter.
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